The most fuel-efficient range of a passenger aircraft is around 5,000 km. (3,100 mi.). To fly farther, the aircraft has to be bigger and heavier to carry the additional fuel, have larger and noisier engines to cope with the heavier weight and increased drag, has to have a stronger undercarriage to cope with the increased weight, etc.
Raytheon is trying to win the international race to develop an air-launched weapon that can shoot down ballistic missiles within tens of seconds after launch. Its entry is a new, longer-range version of the AIM-120 Amraam that could be carried by manned fighters or unmanned surveillance or combat aircraft.
Computer Sciences Corp. says two of its pilots have set a world speed flight record from Vancouver to West Palm Beach, Fla., of 33.9 hr. in a Sikorsky S-61 twin-turbine helicopter that the company operates for the U.S. Navy to conduct airborne target launches and recoveries. Don Strother and Tom Algeo set a course record over 6 days, 4 hr. and 2,927.5 naut. mi. for large turbine helicopters, Class E Rotorcraft/subclass E-1g category.
George W. Hamlin has been named Washington-based managing director of Airline Capital Associates of New York. He headed his own firm, Hamlin Transportation Consulting, and has held senior positions at other aviation consultancies.
DEPARTMENTS Letters 6-8 Who's Where 9-10 Industry Outlook 15 Airline Outlook 17 In Orbit 19 News Breaks 20-24 Washington Outlook 25 A European Perspective 59 Classified 70-71 Contact Us 72 Aerospace Calendar 73
New understanding of the mysterious substance known as "dark matter" could emerge if astronauts are able to repair the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope during next year's planned servicing mission.
It's harvest season on Capitol Hill, and the search is on for ways to fund pet projects and the ongoing war in Iraq by stripping money from defense programs that have no powerful constituencies. Congressional harvest hands are not targeting today's crop of high-dollar programs, but going for the vital seed corn of tomorrow. One example is the joint-agency Space Radar program, an initiative to orbit a constellation of satellites carrying electronically steered, high-resolution, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems with moving target indication (MTI).
Air France-KLM is in talks with China Southern Airlines to set up a joint-venture cargo carrier. CEO Jean-Cyril Spinetta says the two companies are also negotiating code shares to 14 Chinese cities.
U.S. air travel is expected to be stronger than auto travel this summer, rising about 3% during the June-August season, according to the Travel Industries Assn. Leisure travel will be up 1.4% this summer, with Americans taking a record 330 million trips. Auto travel, however, will continue to account for about 8 in 10 summer leisure trips.
Telesat Canada has agreed to operate Canada's new Radarsat-2 satellite for MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates for the lifetime of the spacecraft's mission. Radarsat-2 will be launched this summer from Baikonur on a Starsem Soyuz rocket.
More than a dozen aerospace companies have acquired Discus software, starting at $1,200, to reduce the time and effort in producing a quality inspection report, says provider Characteristic Solutions Co. of Columbus, Ohio. The tool allows users to assemble drawings, specifications and related documents and manage information in detail. Data can be exported to an AS9102 standard spreadsheet that provides a means to generate a first article inspection electronically.
Scandinavian Airlines International will launch a new fare structure June 1 that will mimic what Air Canada has done in offering various fare classes tied to flexibility. Its other three divisions--SAS Denmark, SAS Sweden and SAS Norway--have already implemented the new pricing. The airline is now concentrating on point-to-point service to mirror low-cost-carriers, and is eliminating its one-stops.
Six members of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) program have received the MDA's Technology Pioneer Award. The winners are: Max Peterson, retired MSX project manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; USAF Lt. Col. (ret.) Bruce Guilmain; USAF Col. (ret.) John Mill; Harry Ames of the Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory; Joseph Chow, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratories; and Daniel Talbert, who is retired from the Sandia National Laboratory.
U.S. regional carriers have brokered a slew of new air service agreements with legacy and some low-cost airlines in the last year and a half, leaving questions about growth prospects for 2008. But airline executives remain bullish that opportunities in the 70-seat-aircraft category will arise.
An unexpected exodus of pilots from regional airlines during the last few months has spurred penalties in the first quarter and slowed growth at some of those carriers, but management at most of the companies remains optimistic about a fast recovery.
MARKET FOCUS Rockwell Collins looks for its first big Airbus contract 12 NEWS BREAKS Astronomers: Repairs to Hubble camera will allow us to check results on 'dark matter' 20 Nose of shuttle Atlantis's external tank shows areas repaired after hail damage 22 Flight tests underway to implement improvements to Eurofighter Typhoon 22 Ground controllers trying to recover two orbital missions with serious problems 23
The House of Representatives has passed a $503.8-billion defense authorization bill for Fiscal 2008 that includes $142 billion to cover Iraq and Afghanistan war costs. The measure kept intact cuts made by the Armed Services Committee to the Army's Future Combat Systems program and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). It also includes a last-minute provision to integrate the U.S. ballistic missile defense system further with Israel's.
The National Transportation Safety Board findings in the crash of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's Cirrus SR20 (AW&ST May 7/14, p. 92) provide a thorough analysis of the flight into a Manhattan apartment building, but overlooks a plausible factor that may have contributed to the accident.
David Pritchard, Alan MacPherson, Canada-United States Trade Center (State University of New York at Buffalo)
In the Mar. 15 Aviation Daily article "Hazy: Competition for Boeing and Airbus May Emerge," you quoted International Lease Finance Corp. (ILFC) Chairman and CEO Steven Udvar-Hazy as saying China and Russia may emerge as competitors to Boeing and Airbus.
Cheryl L. Janey (see photo) has been named president of the Falls Church, Va.-based Civil Programs unit of the Harris Corp.'s Government Communications Systems Div. She was vice president-business development and strategy for the Commercial, State and Local Group of the Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Information Technology Sector.
Mauricio Botelho will remain as chairman of Brazil-based Embraer's board of directors after stepping down as president/CEO. He has been succeeded by Frederico Fleury Curado, who was executive vice president-airline market. Curado has been succeeded by Mauro Kern Junior. Antonio Julio Franco and Flavio Rimoli have been named executive vice president-organizational development and executive vice president/legal counsel, respectively.
A communications satellite developed and orbited for Nigeria by China is moving toward its geosynchronous station over Somalia following launch from the Xichang space center May 14 on a Long March 3B booster. The flight is China's fourth space mission this year and the 96th straight launch success since the Long March program was revamped in 1998. Two Compass navigation system spacecraft and an oceanographic satellite have also been launched by the Chinese in 2007.
Airbus is expected to decide in a few weeks whether to boost wide-body production rates, now that management has approved an increase in single-aisle production to 40 aircraft per month from 32. The new production rate should be reached by the end of 2009, with a rate of 38 aircraft a month by mid-2009.
An obituary for Mercury 7 astronaut Walter M. Schirra incorrectly identified the aircraft he flew in combat during the Korean War (AW&ST May 7/14, p. 27). It was the F-84E.
